


we are the kids that you never can kill

by demiromcom (mayerwien)



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Family, Ficlet Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-09 05:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20848106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayerwien/pseuds/demiromcom
Summary: lost boys, lost girls, high tides, wild animals.A series of Batfam ficlets for Inktober/Fictober 2019!





	1. ring

**Author's Note:**

> I've decided to try and do something with all my useless Batfamily headcanons, so I'm turning them into Inktober/Fictober ficlets and collecting them here! 
> 
> In a nutshell: the Batkids are, from oldest to youngest, Dick, Jason, Tim, Carrie, Cass, and Damian. They've all been Robin at some point, or are currently being multiple Robins, whatever. Bruce is still Batman. Alfred is still Alfred. 
> 
> I'm not sure yet if they'll show up in any of these, but in my head Barbara is Dick's BFF and maybe amicable ex, Steph is Tim's internet friend and D&D DM (though I feel like they've met up irl at things like cons and book signings), and Conner and Jon Kent are brothers.
> 
> Tags to be updated as I go!

“Carrie, you know you’re not _literally_ supposed to sit by the phone,” Tim says as he passes through the study, his open laptop balanced in one arm, a half-empty bowl of Doritos in the other. “It’s, you know. An idiom.”

“I know. I’m just sitting here ‘cause I want to,” Carrie replies with a stubborn lift of her chin. Crossing her arms over her chest, she settles deeper into Bruce’s leather wingback desk chair, letting it engulf her. She’s always loved that she fits right into the warm, worn groove of it; right now it feels like the only comfort she has in the world.

Almost against her will, Carrie’s gaze slides over to the heavy black phone that sits to the right of the blotter. “What if he calls and we miss it?” she asks then, her voice smaller. “What if we’re all at dinner and we don’t hear the phone r—“

“Miss Carrie, if Master Jason telephones, I will be sure to inform you at once,” Alfred interjects smoothly from the doorway. Carrie hadn’t even noticed him appear. “In the meantime, it would be a shame to let your favorite pumpkin soup grow cold.” Alfred eyes Tim’s Doritos with clear disdain as Tim hurriedly edges past.

Carrie hesitates. “You promise you’ll hear it?”

The tiniest of smiles appears on Alfred’s face then, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “You have my word.”

So Carrie goes and has dinner at the table with the family, and Dick gives her a second serving of pumpkin soup without her having to ask, and Cass tells a long, complicated joke about a snake that makes everyone groan—and Carrie, laughing, doesn’t even notice that the empty, aching feeling in her chest has dissipated. So it’s even better, in the middle of berry-crepes-for-dessert, when Alfred sticks his head in and announces, “Miss Carrie, a telephone call for you.”

And Carrie _leaps _out of her chair and goes racing down the hall, back into the study, and practically throws herself across the desk to grab the phone. (She’s not worried; she knows Bruce wouldn’t kill her if she accidentally broke the desk, even if it is real mahogany.) “Jay?” she says breathlessly into the receiver.

“Hey, Orange Bird,” Jason says, his voice soft and crackly in her ear, and Carrie can hear him grinning. “How are you holding up?”

“Shut up,” Carrie mutters, but she’s fighting back a grin herself as she sinks back into Bruce’s chair. “Where are you now? Bike still okay?”

“Yeah, she’s good. Had a bit of tire trouble back in Dallas, but luckily someone was kind enough to help me out, so I’m in Austin now.” Jason clicks his tongue. “Hot and humid as hell, but it’s gorgeous here. Did you know this place is literally bat city? Like there’s this long bridge over the lake, and every day at sundown a million, I swear a _million,_ Mexican free-tailed bats come out from under it to search for food.”

Carrie slings her legs up onto Bruce’s desk. “Tell me about it,” she says, closing her eyes, and Jason does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason, I've always thought Jason and Carrie would be especially close siblings and that they'd have the softest spots for each other. (Also, Jason calls her "Orange Bird" after the Disney mascot, haha.)


	2. mindless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: blood, grave injury

Dick felt, a long time ago, that there was no such thing as the single worst day of his life. He can’t imagine tiering bad days; with the life he and his family leads, he’s already had far too many _worst days_ to count.

If he had to think of the most recent one, though.

Dick’s memory instantly goes to the night they’d fought Bloom in the streets, him and Bruce and Jason together. Bruce trapped against a wall and struggling out of Bloom’s grip—and then, the instant Dick turned his head and saw Bloom’s other hand, the claw stretching out, grotesquely long, too long, and slashing Jason open, from chest to hip. Like a pair of scissors snipping easily through a paper doll. Dick remembers watching Jason crumple to the ground and feeling all the breath go out of his own lungs—the world going dark around the edges as Dick forced himself to his feet and fought to get to his brother.

They’d had to wait till they were in the jet before Dick could yank the helmet off Jason with shaking hands. Jason’s suit had helped mitigate a lot of the damage, but not enough. From pressing down on the wound, Dick’s hands were already slippery with his blood.

“Jay,” Dick choked out. Thinking he’d never seen Jason’s lips that pale. His brain running a constant loop of _my fault, my fault, my fault._

In the front, Bruce slid into the pilot’s seat, his expression completely shut off, and for a second Dick wondered how the _fuck_ he could be so calm—until he realized Bruce wasn’t calm, Bruce was shoving down every single emotion just to be able to function.

“Dick, call Alfred,” Bruce said quietly through gritted teeth. “Tell him we’re meeting him in the cave, and to prep for surgery.”

Any other day, Dick realized dazedly, Bruce would be calling Alfred himself while he drove. He made the call.

When they got home Alfred stitched Jason up with steady hands, and after what seemed like an eternity they finally, finally put him to bed, while the kids, all having woken in the middle of the night, huddled wordlessly in the doorway. And Dick, shaking himself out of his stunned trance for their sake, bent down and gathered them all in his arms and hugged them tight—for how long, he can’t remember.

Then he’d taken a shower and scrubbed the blood out from under his nails, and made sure his siblings were all back in bed, even though he knew as soon as he left they’d gather in Tim’s room and sit up together all night. Then Dick went back into Jason’s room and pulled up a chair, and sat by his bedside through the long hours, just watching him breathe. _My fault._

In the morning Jason woke ravenously hungry. Dick made him pancakes himself, and Jason complained, “You always make them too flat and dry,” even as he finished the whole plate. And only then did the darkness start to leach away, Dick rolling his eyes at Jason as he refilled his juice glass—but still, even now, Dick thinks about how close they were to losing him, and how he doesn’t know how many more times in the future they’ll come close to losing each other again, and how nothing, nothing scares him more than this.


	3. bait

_Boring, _Cass signs, frowning. Her nose wrinkles up adorably when she frowns; Bruce thinks he’ll never, ever tire of seeing it.

Reaching over, Bruce playfully pulls the brim of her bucket hat over her eyes. “Be patient,” he replies, signing as he does, thumb against his chin. “Enjoy the moment. My father used to tell me half the fun of fishing is the anticipation.”

Cass looks unconvinced, but she readjusts her grip on her fishing pole.

_“I_ learned to catch fish with my bare hands when I was two,” Damian announces while signing, peering into the surface of the lake and looking unimpressed.

“Oh?” A fond smile quirks at the corner of Bruce’s mouth. “Do you think you could still do it?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Father.” Damian huffs. “Of course I can.”

Cass lifts an eyebrow. _Show us._

“Fine. I will.” Damian makes a show of crouching at the edge of the dock and watching the water, his head cocked as if he can hear the fish swimming by. Then, lightning-fast, he whips his arm into the water—except that he overbalances, and topples right into the lake.

Damian instantly pulls himself back out, but he looks so much like a grouchy wet kitten that Bruce has to stifle a laugh. Cass, meanwhile, is laughing openly and delightedly into her hands.

“You were breathing too loudly,” Damian insists, signing furiously. “It distracted me!”

_I thought you were a master of focus who never gets distracted by anything,_ Cass says smugly. Damian’s only response is to glare at her magnificently.

“Okay, Mr. Miyagi, go towel off before you catch a cold,” Bruce says in amusement.

“I can tell when you’re mocking me, Father,” Damian says haughtily as he stalks past, dripping lake water onto the planks as he goes. “It’s not very mature of you, you know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another of my pet headcanons is that Cass learned ASL and is most comfortable communicating that way, and the whole family learned to sign as a result; Damian picked up signing very quickly and is the best at it, while Bruce is pretty clumsy at it but tries his best. I also like imagining that the kids sign to each other when they don't want Bruce to know what they're talking about, lol.


	4. freeze

“You okay, Orange Bird?” Jason ducks his head down to try and peer at Carrie’s face.

“Mmmph,” Carrie replies, muffled through the blanket she’s wound completely around herself in a woolly tangle. She’s curled on her side, glasses askew, looking dully down at the floor like she can’t see him. Like she can’t see anything.

Jason rubs the back of his neck. “One of those days, huh?”

Carrie doesn’t answer.

Jason thinks for a second, then goes down to the kitchen and comes back with graham crackers, a pint of Neapolitan from the freezer, and two spoons. “Budge over,” he commands. It takes a while, but finally Carrie shifts an inch—just enough for Jason to negotiate for space on the bed next to her, so he kicks off his boots and hands her the ice cream. Carrie always eats all the strawberry, but Jason stopped minding that a long time ago.

“What are you reading?” Jason slides the heavy book off Carrie’s nightstand. _Watership Down—_one of his own copies, he realizes; she must have gone poking through his bookshelf again. Jason can see she’s using the ticket stub from the last time they all went to the opera together as a bookmark. Opening the book to that page, he settles back against the pillows and starts to read aloud.

Eventually, Jason feels Carrie move closer to lean against his shoulder. She tilts the carton of ice cream towards him, and he sticks a cracker in her mouth in return, and for the moment, things are a little bit better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Random inconsequential headcanons of mine: Jay loves Watership Down, and Carrie loves strawberry ice cream. I told you I had a lot of them hahaha


	5. build

There definitely isn’t enough room under this ballroom cocktail table for the four of them _and_ Titus, but they’re making do.

“What’s happening now?” Tim asks, not taking his eyes off his tablet screen. Titus is drooling on his arm, and he has to keep pushing the dog’s head away so he can type.

“They’re talking to the mayor,” Carrie hisses back, peering out from under the tablecloth. “Okay, now the mayor’s leaving...now they’re laughing about something...”

“She is touching Father’s arm entirely too much,” Damian grumbles next to Carrie. “Didn’t they just meet two weeks ago?”

_One and a half,_ Cass corrects him. _Apparently he told her about the new hospital and she was instantly smitten._

Carrie rolls her eyes. “Bruce is soooo predictable. Five bucks says tomorrow night he takes her to the penthouse restaurant, so he can look out the window and tell her how much he ‘loves Gotham in all its imperfect beauty’,” she adds with air quotes. Damian makes a huffy sound.

“Ugh, the wi-fi in this ballroom _sucks,”_ Tim exclaims. “It takes forever, and now it isn’t bringing up any results for an actress in Gotham by that name.”

“Maybe you’re spelling her last name wrong, genius,” Carrie says in a withering tone.

“I am not!” Tim points at his screen. “See, 'Julie Matheson'!”

_M-A-D-I-S-O-N,_ Cass finger-spells impatiently.

“God, Drake, you’re hopeless,” Damian says, trying to wrestle the tablet away from Tim. “Here, give me—“

“Oh, don’t you dare, you little—“

“Kids,” a low, dangerous voice says, and they all whip their head up to see Dick and Jason lifting the tablecloth and staring at them. “What are you doing down there?” Dick asks, raising an eyebrow.

The four of them exchange guilty looks. Titus tries to look cute.

_We’re googling Bruce’s new girlfriend,_ Cass admits finally.

Dick and Jason glance at each other. “Yeah, okay, move,” Jason mutters, and the two of them crouch down and crawl underneath the table to join them.


End file.
